Befuddling, Excruciating, and Maddening; or, No Regrets

It's hard going through the passages of life so far away from your loved ones.

It's not just death I'm talking about. I have dealt with death and grieving since I've been here, but I am talking about the not-so-depressing, just everyday things that most people take for granted when they live near their long-time friends and family. Things like birthdays and anniversary parties, get-togethers with the girlfriends, and spur-of-the-moment phone calls for advice.

My husband is an AF Brat, lived in Europe for a large part of his childhood. He didn't experience monthly or every-two-month visits to the grandparents, yearly family reunions, and summers with the cousins, and he turned out relatively normal. But the thought never occurred to me as a child that I'd be one of those people who sees my parents only once or twice a year. It is what my life has become. It's the one downside to living so far away.

It doesn't mean that you can't still be close to friends and family when you live out of the country. There are emails and letters (and care packages---oh, how I love care packages!). There are the occasional phone calls---although calling here is a real pain. When calling on our calling card (to avoid exorbitant prices), our family members call a 1-800 number, enter a PIN, then our international phone number. All in all, it's like 28 numbers. At least we aren't in the days of rotary dial phones.

It doesn't work, but it's still cool. 

This is the one thing I miss while in the Commissary (well, other than actually having a well-stocked store---Why have we been out of plain yogurt for almost a month?? Why don't we have food coloring AT ALL? Why are the eggs two weeks out of date? How are we almost out of all school supplies? Okay, rant is over): I miss calling my grandmother from the grocery store. I used to call my grandmother at least once or twice a month to ask her how to make something. It would go something like this: "Grammaw, if I'm buying fresh turnip greens, WHAT do I do with these things?" She'd give me a quick run-down on how to pick good ones, how to clean them, and how to prepare and cook them (and when my grandfather was alive, he'd chime in, too).

Our mail doesn't appear to be coming at all---we used to have three mail flights per week, and then it was cut down to two. I haven't gotten mail in over two weeks. Our +4 zip just changed for the second time since I've been here, so I'm hoping that the mail's just a little slow and that it didn't end up in Oman or Europe again.

Just because sometimes life here is slower, with 25 mph speed limits and only once-a-week shipments of groceries (or even mail) on the barge, it doesn't mean life is necessarily slower. Because of the pace of everything, I feel like I do more work than ever. Our painfully slow internet and communication issues make me very impatient and I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, since I'm a "work smarter, not harder" kinda gal. There are days that I have to refrain from banging my head on the wall in frustration because I find taking 15 minutes to check email absolutely excruciating. And don't get me started on the inefficiencies of working for the World's Biggest Bureaucracy---it's maddening what it takes just to get much-needed items, such as book glue (no, not the same as Elmer's or a hot glue gun) so I can do my job the right way.  I know Those People in Washington could care less about how budget sequestration is affecting my ability to salvage damaged books in my little library. I have had my mini-breakdown over our insufficient resources, and once I let go, I really do enjoy my job.

I can truly say that for the first time in my life, I am able to say I'm a "work hard, play harder" person, as well. It's what I've wanted to attain for a long time. I can finally see tangible rewards---not in material items, but even better. I can go to the beach for sea glass hunting, swimming, or diving almost any day. I spend afternoons with my husband and kids. The weather here is fantastic. Less choices for goods and restaurants, less distance for work commutes, and a wardrobe for one season altogether mean more savings in the bank. I spend more time cooking (which I mostly enjoy) and we spend more time sitting around the dinner table as a family. I have time to take art classes and pottery classes, which give me great joy. My oldest gave up cello, but he's spending lots of time playing the guitar (he's now up to 3 of them, 2 electric and an acoustic) and the bass, and I don't believe he'd be practicing so much if he had all the distractions that teens have in the States. My youngest has a spectacular farmer's tan, thanks to spending hours outside instead of in front of a computer or television.

Pie. Yum. H helped me make this apple pie from scratch. 

There are many hardships to living here---some emotional, others a matter of inconvenience---but as we are slowly coming upon our one year anniversary, I can say without any hesitation that we have no regrets.

Oh, and Happy Birthday today to my Daddy. (I know you actually read this---and I thank you for everything, including shaping me into the independent, determined, and stubborn person who does crazy things like uprooting my family on a month's notice and moving to an isolated military base in a Communist country. I really thought it through beforehand and carefully weighed the decision, as you taught me. Thanks for showing me how hard work pays off, and how you must always take pride in your work, even if it's something small like mowing a yard or washing a car. Thanks for not taking it easy on me because I'm a girl. Girls can do anything boys can do--and better. You taught me that. I love you!).

Goodbye; or, For Todd

This week a cloud has hung gloomily over me, ever since I found out that a former neighbor died last Saturday. He wasn't quite the boy-next-door; he was the boy a few houses down and across the street.

My parents moved to our house on Allen Circle when I was 5 years old. Across the street, a few years later, a family with 4 beautiful boys moved in. In addition to each being absolutely handsome, the boys all displayed freakishly good athletic abilities, and soon decided (without consulting us first) that our yard would make the best football field in the subdivision. Soon kids from all over the neighborhood came and played ball in our yard, which I have to admit was kind of perfect. The yard had no trees save the two spruce trees that stood like bookends to the flat expanse of grass---instant goal posts! A straight brick sidewalk perfectly bisected the yard---a 50 yard line! The little landscaping at that time consisted of mostly juniper bushes under my sister and my windows. 

I should also mention that my parents didn't really approve of the kids playing in our yard. Nobody ever asked permission; it's like one day a gang of boys showed up and it was decided from then on that our yard was the community football field. The kids would do things like knock over flowers or leave the water running after they helped themselves to a drink, creating a mud pit. They were rough, too, on each other as well as the yard---of course, this was the 70s and early 80s, before people worried about parents suing for their kid breaking a leg on your property. 

My younger sister and I spent many a day peeking from behind our curtains and over the junipers at the boys playing football. Having just each other as siblings, boys were a foreign species in our house. We studied the mysterious older boys as anthropologists would, watched their moves, eavesdropped on their conversations, and when that got boring, took opportunities to harass them. Sometimes they'd take a break and leave their shoes on our porch, so we'd squish juniper berries in the toes. If they actually noticed, it didn't deter them from coming back. 

Those original football boys eventually grew up and/or moved away. The night before I graduated high school, one of the across the street boys was killed in a car crash. Unbelievably, a few years later, another brother died in a car accident. 

The football tradition was carried on for several years, until one middle school kid showed up drunk and almost aspirated in our front yard, and that was it. Dad and Mom (who ended up taking Puke Boy to the ER) put the kibosh on the games. No more football in our yard. 

Flash forward, many years later. My parents still live on Allen Circle, but most of the families I knew while growing up are gone. Hurricane Katrina took out one spruce, and the other died. My parents ripped up the sidewalk and put considerable time and money into nicely landscaping the yard. The hideous juniper bushes are gone. I still look out the window and think fondly of the boys who played ball, and I get a lump in my throat every time I think about the loss of 2 of the 4 neighbor boys. Then, a few years ago, one of the guys contacted me online---a neighbor Todd, one of the original team, who moved when I was still a geeky, awkward middle schooler and whom I had only seen a few times since their departure from our little town. 

Facebook is a weird thing. It's where the superficial flourishes. It doesn't matter if you hardly know someone; anyone can request to be your "friend," even if they didn't say three words to you growing up. This was different. Instead of that thing people do after a lifetime apart---basically run down your résumé of where you've lived and what you've done---we told each other childhood stories. Funny stories. They started with my family's football field and went from there. The one constant was they all were about things that happened on our little street, and most contained at least a cameo from Tim, the second brother who died. Tim was handsome, smart, and absolutely witty and hilarious. Girls were in love with him. Guys wanted to be his friend. He had that impact on people. Todd and I traded funny childhood stories, and that was the extent of our online "friendship." But in a lot of ways, it was huge. 

It was important to me because it wasn't about how I got contacts and put on some much needed weight and didn't end up as homely as expected, or how I had my heart broken by both so-called friends and boys in our little town, or how I still manage to be somewhat of a geek, but not in a so-sad, pitiful way. It wasn't about reminiscing about high school and college and other experiences we missed out on in each other's life. It was a nice slice of my childhood that he was there for, and few other people can say that. We spoke the language of the kids who grew up in my neighborhood in the 70s and 80s---the Mini Mart, the Icee store, names of people long gone, of swimming holes and creeks. We shared a collective memory and told each other new stories about that time and place that was, to me, much better than trying to impress each other with our lives today. 

Last Saturday Todd suddenly passed away. In light of the world of "friends" and facebook, do I call him my true friend? We hadn't seen each other in over 20 years, and I didn't even know what he did for a living until I read his obituary. But I re-read the chat texts from the last 2 years---late night musings about football games, and who fought whom in the neighbor's yard (now my grandmother's yard), and who talked his daddy into going fishing (without him). Tim, naturally, was a part of these and the rest of the better stories. We talked about grandparents we have lost and how they made us who we are. Ironically, our first conversation was about how we loved our little town that we both had moved away from and never planned on moving back to so much, we both wished to have our ashes scattered in Lawrence County water (him=Cooper's Creek, me=Pearl River). For bringing me back to that time and place, he is definitely a friend. For the loss of someone who was an amazing storyteller, and from all accounts, a great friend to those who have known him since middle school, I feel a huge loss, much more for those folks and his family than for myself. It's also one of those times I have to face the inevitability of being mortal. He was only 45 years old. 

But it doesn't mean it didn't hit me. Hard. 

When I'm back in my town, I will do that thing I always do---I'll wistfully stare out at my parent's front yard and daydream of the boys who played ball and entertained my sister and me so many years ago. And Todd has now joined the league of boys who are no longer on this Earth, and I'll look at his house and feel the loss for those stories we never got around to sharing.